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Manage categories and locations in classifieds website

Depending on your website requirement you may need to have some categories and locations in your classifieds website. For small niche websites you can use script without any category and location. For big websites it is suggested to have appropriate categories and locations for grouping ads and making navigation easy.

In classibase you can have unlimited number of categories and locations with unlimited levels of subcategories. In this tutorial we explain how to add, edit and delete categories in your classifieds website using classibase script. Managing locations is similar to categories so you can perform similar actions for locations as well.

How to add and edit category

Navigate to “Manage” -> “Categories” from admin panel

Click on existing category name if you want to add subcategory to it or view existing subcategories

Click on “Add new” button to add new category to existing level, click on “Edit” button if you want to edit related category.

New page will load. Fill in form details.

Parent category – if you want to add current category under other existing category then select parent category. You can change parent category whenever you want. Ads will stay in this category even if you change parent category.

Name – Category name

Description – category description which will be displayed on category listing page. Put informative and encouraging add new item text here. You can use {@LOCATION_OR_SITETITLE} variable to display active location. It is good for SEO and site visitors as well. They will know for which location items listed. For every location you will have custom category description mentioning location name in description. If you list for all locations then site name will be used instead location name.

Permalink – how your category url will appear. It is also important for SEO

Locked – if you have subcategories of current category then by locking it you force posting ads to related subcategory not to category itself. It is good if you have generic category and specific subcategories. If you do not have any subcategory then do not lock it because users will not be able to post ads into it. Locking and unlocking done automatically so you can ignore it.

Enabled – enabling will make it visible to public and users can add items to it. You can use it later to enable or disable categories temporarily

If you defined other languages in classifieds website then you will see language tab in category adding / editing form. Click on each language to add translation.

Permalink is automatically generated from category name of default language. You can change it by clicking edit button next to it

After finishing all changes click “Submit” to save changes.

There are some columns on categories page:

Name – name of category

Ads – number of currently running ads in category and subcategories. Bu clicking you can view them in admin panel for editing.

Sub – number of sub categories

Locked – if category has sub categories then good to keep them locked to force ad posting into related sub categories. State can be changed by clicking on a button.

Enabled – shows if category enabled, state can be changed by clicking on a button.

Position – buttons to change category order. Categories listed using this order every ware for consistency.

Custom – links to custom fields editing area

Edit – button for editing category

Delete – button for deleting category

Adding and editing location is similar to editing categories.

How to delete category

Navigate to “Manage” -> “Categories” page from admin panel. If you want delete sub category then navigate there by clicking on category name.

Click on “Delete” button for category

New confirmation page will open. Select “Yes, delete this category and subcategories.” checkbox. If there are subcategories listed on this page they are also will be deleted.

Click “Submit” button for deleting category and sub categories.

Deleting category will not delete ads inside that category. Because there is no category for those ads, ads will be listed only on general listing where all ads listed. If you delete all categories visitors will post ads without category. To list those ads you need to add ‘Display "View more" link’ option to ads widget. Otherwise it will not be possible to navigate to ads without category.

How to list categories on front end

After having defined your categories you can manage how categories will be shown on your classifieds website. When you install Classibase classifieds script categories widget will be already created and displayed in your front end for site visitors. You can add other widgets or change existing category widget settings.

For editing category widget or add new one navigate to “Appearance” -> “Widgets” page from admin panel. Open existing sidebars for category widget or drag category widget from “Available widgets” to opened sidebar. Then click “Edit” next to category widget. View tutorial about categories widget.

Here are available category widget settings:

Title – widget title, if left blank automated title “Categories” will be used.

Hide title – check box if you do not want to display title at all. Usually used if you display categories in front page or on top of ad listings. Because you do not want to occupy extra space for title as it will be obvious that there are categories or sub categories for current category.

Display mode – define how your categories will be listed

Dynamic – this will display current category and open all parents of current category. Also will open current category if has sub categories. Will hide sub categories for other parent categories. It is good for clear navigation on sidebars.

Dynamic minimal – Same as dynamic but will not list neighbors of active or opened category. Will list sub categories if there are any. Good to use if you want to save some space and reduce content on sidebars.

Fixed 1 levels – displays only one level of categories, will not list any subcategories. Good to use on listing and home page at the top before content.

Fixed 2 levels – displays 2 levels, category and sub category if there are any. Good to use on home page.

Display ad count – will display number of ads in every category. If there are no ads in category, will not display any number, we do not want to crowd web page. It is good for site visitor to know and not visit that category if there are no ads in it. Also visitors will be impressed if you have many ads in category, it gives good reputation for your classifieds website. Ad count will be different for each location so this option will show number of ads in current location and related category. Counting ads is resource consuming task and we optimized Classibase for counting ads for all location and categories once and cache results for 1 hour.

Related to active category – if selected will display sub categories of active category. If no active category then will display main categories.